MikeDVB.com

At MDDHosting today we received an order which our sales department reviewed and determined was likely fraud and marked the order as such.  We shortly there after received an email from the individual who will hence forth be known as “Interesting Character” to protect their identity.  While they may not actually be a fraudster – their order details and actions all indicated that they most likely were.

The individual signed up using a first name and last initial only, their mailing address was a mail forwarding address, and many other red flags were sent up when this individual attempted to order services.

Here is a complete view of the email conversation with all personally identifying information redacted and by all means read it over and let me know what you think in the comments.

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As many readers of this site may already know I own and operate MDDHosting, LLC – a web hosting firm based out of Franklin, Indiana and we have been in business for over 2 years and 3 months as of the writing of this post.  Over the last 27 months I have seen just about every type of fraud, scam, and lie and in my personal opinion affiliate scams have to be one of the larger issues facing web hosting consumers today.

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This page originally contained an complete email conversation between myself and Jonathan Burdon however due to legal issues (copyright) I’ve been required to pull down those emails.  Fortunately this doesn’t stop me from speaking about Jonathan’s less than ethical actions including cookie stuffing as well as “reviews” lacking any sort of content or value.

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There are many qualities that are required in an individual for them to start and grow their own successful web hosting company on their own from the start.  Many people see web hosting as something that is simple to provide and requires little to no work which couldn’t be further from the truth.  There are many aspects of web hosting that the average first-time web host will not plan for or even think about such as their web site which can be simple but is very important if you are to function as an online business.  Other aspects of running a web hosting business range from obtaining the correct licensing as required by local laws to having a basic understanding of business management and accounting.  While most are not a jack of all trades, they can often get by based upon what they know and have people they can ask for help if they need it.

The most important quality required in a person starting their own web hosting provider is resourcefulness – when you are new to hosting there are certainly going to be roadblocks that you come across and questions that you do not know the answers to.  Being resourceful means that even if you don’t know the answer immediately you know where to look to find the answer.  The vast majority of support issues that clients raise could be answered simply by visiting Google.com and typing in the question or a description of the issue.  Unless you are an expert on everything (keep dreaming) then you either need to be resourceful or you will very quickly find yourself being asked questions you cannot answer which leads to very unhappy customers and bad reviews. Read more…

I was doing the math on the licensing structure (we’ll go with the 1-CPU Enterprise license as this example).

I will start by saying that I realize it is in LiteSpeed Technologies’ best interests for you to lease your license from them as this gives them the most profit/income etc… where as an Owned license is generally seen as a larger up-front investment to reduce long-term costs.

I am also aware that I am comparing monthly lease to a yearly ownership as I am wanting to compare the extremes (smallest up-front investment vs the largest).

Owned licenses are an investment into LiteSpeed Web Server/Technologies and I always look at investments based upon how well they will return and how long until they return. A 39 month wait until the investment begins to return is a tad too long in my opinion and as you read on you will see the details of my analysis of their licensing program. Read more…

Many of my customers as well as many other individuals that have web sites of their own are finding out that the internet itself is running very slowly today.  When I contacted our datacenter that provides service for our servers here is the response that I received from the representative:

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As an entrepreneur I very much understand the importance of networking with other individuals and companies in my industry.  Many people that try to start a business tend to operate in a very introverted way which often prevents them from making the networking connections that would be beneficial to their business in the long run.  Many fear that discussing their business with others in the same industry may open them up to issues where private company information is divulged but I have found that not to be an issue.  Individuals in the same industry can often discuss common issues that affect the industry and work together to resolve these issues faster than they could on their own.

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I have always been what I call “naturally talented” when it comes to business management as I understand every aspect of running a business without any official formal training.  There are those that simply know how to run a business, there are those that have taken courses at a university to be taught these skills, and then there are those that really don’t know what they are doing when it comes to running a business.  Anybody who has operated their own successful business will tell you that there are many aspects to operating your business and doing it successfully.

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